For my final I decided to use the most difficult medium for me, acrylic painting. The idea I had for this piece was based on a reoccuring theme I see everywhere. This theme was the use of tech for things in everyday life that aren't as needed (ex. video games, media content, ect.) I am not saying that I am exempt from this, in fact I acknowledge that I use tech a lot in my life and it can be a problem. However this painting is to show just how much we use and how it can effect the environment around us. I show this by including the vines and leafs, which some are green while some are turning brown and dying. I wish I was able to show the lighting of the room better but overall I am proud with this piece. 

Over the semester my art has progressed to something I didn't ever think I could achieve. My understanding of shadows and light along with anatomy of people and animals is far beyond what it was when I first started. You can tell throughout my pieces shown in my portfolio how I grasped these concepts and used them to help further exel my ability to create art. Throughout each unit I learned specifics to that medium and how to properly use them, though some could be used for other mediums as well. For example with watercolor, I learned the wet on wet technique that can also be used for acrylic painting. For non-paint mediums there isn't such a thing as a wet on wet technique, but there is cross hatching and stippling that can be used for graphite, charcoal, and ink. My portrait from the beginning of the semester compared to the end really shows how my understanding of shadows and highlights has grown throughout the class. 

I've always wondered what my style of art for this class could be called, the situation with my digital style is no difference. I like to tread the lines between something realistic but still not realistic enough to trick someone into thinking that it's the real thing. I've asked myself this question over and over again but only have just now found that the answer has been right there all along. I was too busy trying to put it into one category or another- realistic or cartoon. Semi-realism, the perfect balance that lines up with the border of the two styles i've been trying to fit all this time. It is rewarding to finally answer that question, what is my style- but that's not the only rewarding thing. The true reward I feel is being able to show off my hard work to people and them admire it. That is what I think my reward is, and my success. I know I have succeeded because I feel rewarded when people look at my art and are able to point out the details I thought only I knew about. 

I feel that graphite is my best medium, however I didn't do it justice with this art piece. I feel that I had rushed the process and didn't use my knowledge of the medium to my advantage. There isn't much difference between values when there should have been more that could have been achieved. If I were to redo this assignment then I would use charcoal to help get the darker values and try using more range of drawing pencils to help add more shade to my piece. 

I've never been someone that would paint a lot but after being taught techniques and assigned things to paint, it had suddenly become my favorite medium to work with. I love how I don't have to worry about mistakes being permanent because I can always just paint over them. Compared to ink and graphite it didn't strain my muscles as much with the force you have to put on a pencil to get a darker color or the tedious filling of spaces with such a small nib. I have experience with knowing how to use colors to get highlights and shadows from doing my own digital paintings. It wasn't hard to incorporate that knowledge into acrylic painting as its just a bunch of layering and blending. Learning the specifics of the techniques through class practices really helped me when it came to my final so I knew how and where to use them for textures. 

Before our watercolor unit I had a very small idea on how to use it and what techniques were associated with the medium. In fact this was the only medium throughout the entire semester that I didn't have a lot of prior knowledge on. This class was the one class that ever taught me how watercolors worked and how to create a successful piece with them. I would like to try painting a landscape again with watercolors to see if I can further improve my own techniques. Since this was the first time I didn't have much experience with a medium it really showed me how fast I can pick up something like this and incorporate fresh knowledge into an art piece.